


Dream It, Win It

by bluflamingo



Category: Original Work, Superstition - Superstition_hockey (Original Work)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Future Fic, Gen, M/M, Major Character Injury, Summer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:06:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28098903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluflamingo/pseuds/bluflamingo
Summary: Injured as a teenager, Jacks never made it to the NHL, and after more than a decade without a Cup, Luc's starting to think winning it together might just be a pipe dream.
Relationships: Luc Chantal/Oliver Jackson, OMC/OMC
Comments: 11
Kudos: 47
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Dream It, Win It

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Wereflamingo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wereflamingo/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Superstition](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6099484) by [Superstition_hockey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Superstition_hockey/pseuds/Superstition_hockey). 



> An AU in the universe of [the Superstition Hockey verse](https://archiveofourown.org/series/413233).

There is, even Luc has to admit, a point at which you have to accept that, no matter how much you pray to the hockey gods, no matter how many goals you score, no matter how carefully you follow your rituals, something just isn’t going to happen.

It’s not like they haven’t won stuff. Jack’s has actually won more Championships than Luc: two Kelly Cups with the Stingrays, another with the Growlers, the Calder two years in a row with the Hershey Bears and again with the Phantoms, not to mention two NCAA Championship wins with Minnesota-Duluth, one when he was a student and another after he graduated.

Jacks always says they don’t count-count, since he got all of them coaching, not playing, which is obviously ridiculous, especially since he counts Luc’s three Prince of Wales trophies and two Campbell Bowls, which literally aren’t even cups, or Championship wins. One of them’s even called a bowl, which is definitely not the same thing as a cup.

“It’s not like the Stanley Cup looks anything like an actual cup,” Jacks says when Luc lines up a soup bowl, a cereal bowl, a pasta bowl, a coffee mug and a teacup that they inexplicably have to demonstrate the difference. “And I’m pretty sure you could drink out of any of them.”

It’s not like Luc’s never been tempted to ask Finbar to replace his rainbow mug with a literal bowl for tea, but he does at least recognise that people would think that was weird when a picture inevitably made it onto Buzzfeed or somewhere. Which is not even really the point.

He lets Jacks tidy away the kitchenware - Jacks is, in Luc’s opinion, obsessing over Luc taking it easy after the surgery he needed on his hip earlier in the summer, probably because the Phantoms made it to the conference finals and so Jacks couldn’t be there in Luc’s first few weeks of recovery - and they wind up on the deck of their lakehouse, Mako running back and forth to the water like she’s got no idea what “too old for this” means. 

Luc kind of wishes he could bottle some of that - he’s only a couple of years past thirty, but sometimes he feels ancient. 

“I know we’d have won the Cup if we’d ever been on a team together,” he says, leaning into Jacks so they can’t see each other’s faces. The accident was years ago, more than half their lifetimes now, but he can still remember it, ice-bright and sharp. His mom’s face when Jacks’ mom called to say a car had run a red light, hit Jacks where he was standing waiting for the light to change, that he was in hospital; the bandages around Jack’s head, the tubes, the way he didn’t wake up and didn’t wake up and didn’t wake up, while Luc prayed and begged and promised that he’d give up hockey if he had to, as long as Jacks came back to him. The months of struggling back from the injuries to his body, to his brain, and the day that Jacks sat Luc down, more than a year after the accident, only a few weeks after Luc won gold in Word Juniors, and said that Luc had to stop, had to accept that Jacks’ hockey career was over, he wasn’t ever going to play again.

He still came to the Draft, still cheered when the Sharks took Luc first overall, and held Luc later when he sobbed and said it wasn’t fair, that they should have both been signing contracts.

“We’d have done a lot of things if we were on a team together,” Jacks says softly. “You’re young still, even for a player. You’ve got time, still.”

It’s true, but it’s not - Luc could play for a few more years yet, even with the injuries, the surgeries, the ever-lengthening recovery periods and the dire warnings about what happens if he gets another serious concussion. He knows, though, in his heart, that he can’t play at the level he needs to take his team all the way. Not without Jacks beside him; not with Jacks down in Lehigh Valley with the Phantoms, summers together but the rest of the year made up of snatched visits on away trips and grabbed at weekends in between games. 

“I’m tired,” he says, feeling it right down to his bones - down to his soul. “I’m just - I’m tired. I want to be with you.”

Jacks kisses the side of his head, and sniffles a little, and doesn’t say anything for a long time. 

It’s not like Luc never thought about what happened after hockey - not in the sense of what he’d do with his time or anything, but he always, right back to that first year after they got married, knew that eventually he’d stop playing and he and Jacks could be together all the time. It’s the only thing he’s ever wanted more than he wants hockey. The only thing that’s ever been worth giving up hockey.

“Buddy’s ready for the C,” he says. “I think, one more season, however it ends, and then I’ll announce my retirement after the playoffs.”

It’s weird to be thinking about the playoffs in the summer - he’s usually too focused on trades and Draft picks and training camp - but it feels right. 

“You could do it next year,” Jacks says, “Go out on a high,” and Luc doesn’t even feel the usual urge to caution him against jinxing it. That’s how he knows he’s sure.

He’s starting to think idly about dinner - there’s a new fish restaurant in town that Jacks wants to try, and Luc’s pretty sure they could get a table, even without a reservation - when Jacks’ cell trills from inside the house. 

Jacks shifts a little, nudging Luc into sitting up. “Let me get that, it’s probably Du Laine.”

Du Laine, goalie for the Phantoms, is in the midst of breaking up with his long distance boyfriend, and has apparently decided that he needs Jacks to get him through it. Either that, or he’s hoping Jacks will offer to ease his pain with his dick, which Luc thinks is definitely the reason for all the phone calls and Jacks thinks is a ridiculous idea.

Jacks comes back out after less than ten minutes, and when Luc looks up - the shortest call with Du Laine thus far has been easily twenty-five minutes - his face is doing some weird combination of shocked and excited and scared that Luc doesn’t know what to do with.

Jacks sits down next to Luc very carefully, leans forward with his elbows on his knees and looks at the water instead of Luc. “So,” he says, his voice entirely neutral, the way it was when he said he was going to Minnesota Duluth to study sports science, not coming to San Jose like Luc had wanted him to. “When you said that you know we’d win a cup if we were on the same team, how serious were you about that?”

“Deadly,” Luc says. He doesn’t joke about the Stanley Cup, even if he has pretty much given up hope of ever winning it.

“Would it count,” Jacks says, still careful, barely moving, “If I was assistant coach on the team? Because Coach Oulette just offered me a job.”

*

Nine months later, facing off against Tippett in game four of the Stanley Cup finals, 2-1 up with fifty-seven seconds of the third period to go, three games up against the Panthers, Luc takes a second to look over at the team on the bench.

They all know that the Cup’s in the building, that this could be it, that this face-off counts more than maybe any other face-off they’ve taken all year, but, even under their helmets, Luc can see that they know what he does - they’ve got this, it’s theirs.

Behind them, Coach Oulette has her game face on, utterly focused like she’s not about to be the first woman to coach a Stanley Cup winning team.

And next to her, one hand pressed to his chin like it’ll hide the smile, the excitement, Luc knows is there, is his husband, his best friend, the boy he’s known since he was seven that he was going to win a Stanley Cup with, if only they could get onto the same team.

And fifty-eight seconds later, the whole barn screaming, his team-mates piling onto him, the announcer’s voice booming out with, “the Quebec City Nordiques have won the Stanley Cup,” the only thing Luc can see is Jacks’ face, the pride and the joy on it, the love for Luc and their team and the game, shining brighter than anything. Even brighter than the Cup that they’ve finally, finally, won.


End file.
